JCCS Week: Matchbox does Japan...

The Lamley Matchbox collection is almost all Mattel-era models, and there are very few Japanese nostalgics, at least by the 25-years or older standard. From our count, the Land Cruiser and Toyota 4Runner are the only two that qualify.

But there are a ton of other Japanese car castings, and almost all of them are worth collecting.

To help you see a few, I took five minutes to rummage through the collection and grab every Matchbox Japanese car I saw. Then I threw them into the Lamley studio and took one shot each. Not every casting is represented (the Scion Xb comes to mind), and neither is every version of the castings I do show. But you should get the idea.

We would love to know what castings you collect, or which versions you want. Let us know. In the meantime, hear are some shortcuts to the ebay listings of models you might be interested in. Enjoy:

My favorite of the lot is the Subaru. I love the fact that Matchbox decided to do this specific generation of the WRX and I also like that they realistically made it a police car. But I hate that very fact as well. I would love to see this as a standard civilian car, especially in the signature Subaru blue with gold wheels (would be like a laser blast through the line-up). I'm ready to bet ANY amount of money that it would be a complete winner in everybody's book. I hope matchbox is listening and my prayers would come true someday. All they need to do is remove the light bar and thats it. Nothing else. The rest of the casting is very, very perfect as it is. Okay now, too much Subaru talk. About the other cars, I like the Mitsubishi (insert same reasons as the WRX), especially the UK police version, and the Nissan 350Z, Mitsubishi Triton, Honda Civic Type-R and Mazda 2. All of these are great castings and the 350Z and Mazda need to be brought back to the line-up someday after some time off. Anyway, great photos and happy JCCS week!